Nena Arias | August 20, 2018
Even if you don’t believe it, to have the accurate worldview will save your life. I was prompted to write about this because of an article that was forwarded to me; here is the title and a short quote to make the most important point of my emphasis:
‘Evil is a make-believe concept’: US couple trumpets global goodness on bike trek. ISIS kills them.
Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both 29, quit their Washington, D.C., jobs a little over a year ago and embarked on a bicycle trip around the world. By April, their journey well underway, Austin wrote in the couple’s blog, Simply Cycling, that they were embracing something beyond a mere great adventure.
“You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” he wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse.” He continued: I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own—it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this. “There’s magic out there,” Austin wrote, the paper noted, “in this great big beautiful world.”
It is sad and tragic that this couple’s “revelation” was short-lived because,
Austin and Geoghegan were killed July 29 — just a few days into the second year of their journey — in what CBS News said was an ISIS-inspired attack as they rode through Tajikistan, which is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. A car rammed into the couple and other bicycle tourists, after which five men exited the vehicle and attacked the group with knives, the network reported. Two other bicyclists — one from the Netherlands and one from Switzerland — also were killed.
This is only one example of what can happen when you make up your own worldview instead of paying attention to what God says about all earthly life and the hereafter. We would all like to think that people are good, but the truth is very different. In the Bible, this is what we read in Jeremiah 17:9 that says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Also, Mark 7:21-22 corroborates this: “For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.” Jesus came to change all whoever want a heart change. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” Ezekiel 36:26. (See also, John 3:16)
What is more, real life affirms that the Bible is right. You put the dots together, and live.
